Computer-Based Math Continues to Gain Momentum

The country of Estonia has been racking up the accolades recently, receiving high praise for its stellar PISA scores, and recognition from the BBC News for its progressive, cutting-edge teaching practices. One of the many reasons for this is that Estonian primary schools have long been teaching students as young as seven and eight years old how to build robots, develop QR codes, and write computer programs. They are the pioneers of a growing movement to finally make computer science once again a core subject in K–12 classrooms. Innovative school districts worldwide, including Chicago Public Schools in the US, have recently begun to follow suit, incorporating computer science into the lesson plans of classes as early as primary school.

This February, Estonian school systems will be making another leap ahead of the curve by beginning to implement Computer-Based Math™ (CBM) lesson plans into their classrooms. Conrad Wolfram, founder of Computer-Based Math™, explains that computer programming and math are highly intertwined subjects that should really be seen as one entity. “Coding in math is the equivalent of composition in English,” he says. With computer-based computation at the heart of math education, students will learn to pose increasingly complex questions, visualize abstract concepts, and solve more challenging problems than ever before.

“A central question in all this is precisely what outcomes we wish for our students after their years of maths study? This is a question which we have been addressing from first principles in formulating CBM,” Conrad explained in a recent blog post. Today, the world is built heavily on a foundation of technology, and it’s becoming increasingly crucial to teach students at an early age how to effectively navigate, communicate, and problem-solve in this future society.

To learn how you can begin to reinvent your curriculum with the cutting-edge technologies and teaching strategies of both CBM and traditional math, attend Wolfram’s Virtual Conference for Education on January 28. To follow the latest in strictly CBM, sign up on the site and get involved.